


always (to us)

by decidingdolan



Series: theopolis (use at your own discretion) [6]
Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: (slight fluff), Alcohol, Angst, Childhood relationship, Drama, Fluff, Identity Porn, Introspection, Love, M/M, Memories, Musing, Narrator's POV, Nostalgia, Reflection, Retrospective, Second Person, Time - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 08:32:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1812004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decidingdolan/pseuds/decidingdolan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the classic story. Boy meets boy. They part. They reunite. There's awkwardness. There's tension. Attraction. But time closes in. Death comes knocking, and one of them happens to moonlight as New York City's masked vigilante.</p>
            </blockquote>





	always (to us)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [esmidsm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/esmidsm/gifts).



>   _"I am thinking of you. What else can I say?"_
> 
> _\- Margaret Atwood, excerpt from 'Postcards'_

* * *

You didn’t really hear the seconds tick on the clock—the persistent, incessant tick, tick, tick, against life's stillness and commotion, until your girlfriend (? Yes? No. Maybe. Cancel. She's stronger than you—go her—but these minimal, situational/occupational hazards of breakups never did last, as either of you would have wanted it to. ? Yes? No. Maybe. Cancel.) announced in her valedictorian speech (You're graduating. You're graduating and that's all that mattered. Chemistry you still knew. Biology's right here. Calculus you'd done- somewhat. History— _why_ would be a more appropriate word. They'd lumped you into the whole gen Y, multi tasking lot, yes, but minority didn’t do you justice, in even defining your moonlighting work as the City's web slinger.) that life is precious because it ends (You didn’t want to hear that word. Or to feel it existing. Wrong, said your head. Yes, said your heart, I can.) and your long lost best friend confessed, by way of a ragged 'I haven't got much time', that he's dying, in the same week. (Dying. Leave it to Harry Osborn to reveal these kind of details to you at the last minute.)

You all right? Of course you would ask. He sounded godawful on the phone—hoarse, drugged out, alcohol layering his voice—and you, knowing him, knowing him still, even after the years apart, woke up, head lifted from the sweater you'd used as a pillow during the night (the fabric was softer than you'd imagined.), because something wasn't just wrong—something was done—decided, set on a course he couldn't get out of.

(Same voice.

Calling you up at ten pm, years ago (Eleven years old and in Batman patterned pajamas, ten pm was way past bed time. He’s probably propped up in that fluffy, queen sized bed, Egyptian linen sheets and goose feathers stuffed pillows, a manservant (they started that term when they were seven.) holding up the phone for him, you thought. Bit your lips, hand holding the telephone started shaking. Because Uncle Ben might wake up (But he didn't. Not for the rest of that night.) and chase you off to bed. Tell Harry that problems could be fixed in the morning, not the night. (Harry's never listened. It's always this, here, now. Urgent, restless with him. Desperate, begging. Anything to rid him of the unwanted, anything to kill off the problem’s source suffocating him.) It's happened before, The Intervention, and Harry only worsened afterwards. Adults, what did they know, anyway. Eleven years old and in Batman patterned pajamas, and you knew you wanted to do what you could—listen. Because no one else did in that mansion. No one else did at school. No one else did in Oscorp. You're home, and he's not (not really) and if a phone call was the closest he could actually feel to being home, this was what you wanted to do.)

You all right? you'd ask, even when you already knew the answer, from the sniffing at another end of the line.

No, a voice whispered in the negative, strangled, held at gunpoint by his own emotions, I'm not. Thorns in his tone. A stuffed, reddened nose, a pair of sharp cerulean eyes. Daggers. Intent on hurting. You'd seen it all before.

It's his father. It's the unfair Miss Valerie at school. It's the world. It's life. It's raining, and it's dark. It's too restricting, and then it's too bright. It's snowing and it's dull. It's boring. It's rushed.

It's wrong, until it's right.

(Because he always was. Had to be. Your Harry.)

And you listened. Listened to the petty details. The gory bits. The murmurs and the outbursts. The sentences stretched thin and the tight lips. The long sighs and the varying whines. The eye rolls and the shaky, forced laughs.

You'd lost them, like him. You knew. You'd lost them, but you had another pair (half now, your fault.). He didn't. Might as well had none.

He didn't call you up at prep school. Or college. The connection was lost. He could look you up, but he didn't. He could ring you again, one am and in your light blue striped pajamas (times changed), and you'd answer.

Except he didn't.

He might have been okay, you suspected. Away from the City, from his father, you told yourself after several days. The phone was silent. You'd gone to bed and slept through the night and did not wake up halfway through.

He might have been fine, you guessed. Disappeared one rushed morning, just as a businessman would, vanished from your life. Goodbyes at your doorstep. Tear stained cheeks and hugs that never felt whole enough, his fragile, thin frame and your outstretched arms. His chest pressing against yours. Both heaving in breaths. His chin on your shoulder, his hair brushing yours.

Why, you'd asked. You usually weren’t the one with questions. (Though you still thought you could hardly serve up the answers.) Why do you have to go.

He bit his lip. You hated it when he did that—even now. Stubborn thing. Biting in his answer. Chewing over what he didn't wanted to say.

I don't know, he said, He told me to.

Norman.

His fingers thread through yours. Filled in the gaps. And you remembered thinking he fitted. Wanting him to stay.

Letting him go was brushing a knife against your skin. Your fingers trailing from his wrist to tips of his fingers, catching only air when he let go. Blinked, and announced, See you, Parker, like they would see each other the next day at school, and you wouldn't be sitting beside an empty chair. Studying that sloppy carving they'd attempted on the desk one time after school. (Vandalism, he grinned, eyes lit up. You liked it when he was excited. Happy. Like there was a secret shared between you two. A pact. A promise. A contract. Those rare moments when he was genuinely blissful. Happy to exist. Happy to be in the world and not shy from it, not hide away in the dark corners as would be his natural instinct to. You were two boys crouched under a school desk, one holding a knife, another too smug with himself to hide his grin. You were two boys, best friends, and you made Harry Osborn grin. You'd said, What else?, with a shrug, as a reply, and you realized then that you never wanted to see anyone else happy this much. Anyone else.) Trying to keep still when they reached the O at roll call in homeroom and didn't say his name. (Harold, seriously, Harold, he was always muttering under his breath, agitated. Never permitted anyone but you to call him Harry, and there's a special privilege in that, you supposed.)

You gulped. Tears still fell. Hot, fat drops, and you couldn't bring yourself to answer.

Let him think what he wanted.

(Here's the thing:

Harry Osborn wasn’t perfect.

Yes, you're stating a general fact about humans—a vague, broad word. Nobody was. But he was as good a case to study.

He's quick to judge and assume. Prone to temper tantrums and tears at the end of his thoughts when he wasn’t busy charming you into his goal. Roped you in and pulled you over. Convinced you of things and then spoke words against them the next minute. Struck up a fight and refused to admit he's wrong.

He'd probably blaming you for your silence, you knew. Expected you to say words and you came up empty, a wrong in his books.

Bound to happen, and you let it.)

He frowned, and turned away.

Watching him leave was twisting the knife into your heart.

Not again. No more. None of that. Them together. Them laughing. Harry laughing. Running away, hands locked in each other's. Bopping his nose when he's saying something absurdly stupid. Calling him out when he went on stage for the Best in Science certificate. Making him blush. Hearing him say your name.

He'll call, said Aunt May.

As the story went, as your expectations of him went, he didn't.

And you came to realize, thirteen and sitting on the front porch, exact same spot, your life was a pattern.

They tended to leave, those you let wandering into your heart. Your parents, your best friend. (Now your uncle.) They tended to disappear. Goodbyes at your doorstep, and you're left standing. A remainder. A forgotten past. A piece of them they had to leave behind.

You're always here, where they weren't. You're always here, and they are not.

You're always here, and they’d gone.)

Not really, Pete, continued the voice on the line.

It wasn't the flu. It wasn't a fever. It was death—he sounded like death, you realized. Raspy, gasping.

I'm dying.

And your heart plummeted.

Time.

Bullshit concept. Bullshit.

 

* * *

 

Somebody had written somewhere a curiously inaccurate, exaggerated phrase, "all the time in the world," and frankly, you wanted to punch the inventor in the face.

Because no one ever did—have all the time in the world. No one ever would. The clock was ticking, in your ears now, and it kept on.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

All the time in the world. A childish thought, a headstrong, stubborn teenager's belief, a naive couple's tunnel vision view of the world.

All the time in the world, and your best friend had none. All the time in the world, all these years apart, and both life and death were ahead of you in the race to get back your best friend.

All the time in the world, and you'd wanted to ask where that went. The years you weren't together. They years you’d grew up, voices broken out, had the growth spurt, met girls, kissed them, and stumbled into high school (on your part. He was probably the one who strode in.)

All the time in the world, and Harry was the paparazzi's favorite. You spotted him, every couple of years, popping up around the world. Casinos. Race tracks. Cannes. A different, Victoria's Secret grade model in his arms each time. You'd been in Brooklyn, unnoticeable, overlooked, a dot.

All the time in the world, and you needed none to find him. All the time in the world, and it wouldn't be enough for him to find you.

 

* * *

 

But what was normal?

Was normal lusting after your best friend? Realizing, when he'd met your eyes, that you'd both changed but what you'd waited for had arrived. That he's back and you were done waiting. Wanting. Asking. Was normal thinking that your love is a little more than platonic?

_That you've cared but you've never just cared._

How do you know if you more than like someone, you remembered asking Uncle Ben.

Everything, you heard the reply, You like everything about the person. Not just tolerate her. You like her. The good, the bad, the quirks, the ups, the downs, the preferences, the words, the stream of thoughts and the silence, the lips—moving and against yours and still. The eyes, red rimmed, shinning, or amused. The hair, fresh out of a salon or after twelve hours in bed. You want to listen. You want to stay. You want to see her happy. Smiling. You want to just... _be._ You breathe in air, you breathe out her presence. You're conscious of her next to you, and you suddenly realize, you _know_ , you _feel_ , what happiness is. (That dictionaries offer but one dimensional definitions. That the static, clip art images of people smiling fail to illustrate the warmth in your chest. In the pit of your stomach. In the tingling nerves under your skin.)

Seeing him again and tugging back down your heart to its place.

Ten years, and he's the same. He'd had them fooled, but never you.

He wanted Spiderman's blood, your blood, that's all you knew, and you'd turned to leave, stricken, beaten.

Harry and his one track mind. His dogged clinging to a choice, blocking out what he deemed unnecessary, extraneous, superfluous.

Harry, your Harry. His time running out before his eyes, the eyebags betraying his orderly tailored suit jacket, blue eyes tumultuous like an eye of the storm.

You'd turned to leave, and he grabbed your shoulder, just as he used to do when you said you'd had enough of him punching back that bully in the alley five blocks away from school. You froze, and he turned you around to face him. You let him, body limp, powers melted away when his hand was on you, you let him.

Don't turn your back on me, he lashed out, and your heart was flip flopping, calling.

 _He needs you, Peter. He needs you, you know that._  
 _I can't_ , said your mind, _I can't._

_Please._

The final blow. The sucker punch. His favorite. And you're falling for it, right on queue, as intended when executed. He knew you would, and he never missed a chance. Violent, then soft. An aftermath after a storm, the Harry Osborn way.

_Please._

He's clinging to you (nerves rising to attention, pulse throbbing, audible in your ears), his chin on your shoulder, hair brushing against yours.

Flashbacks.

And your heart gave in.

He glanced up when you descended, eyes red, face worse than you'd ever seen him, leather jacket in a rumpled pile underneath him. Clear signs of having slept in yesterday's clothes. Or not sleeping at all.

He looked happy, seeing your red and blue. Webbed designs. Spandex, tight on your skin. And your heart almost took another leap.

But he wasn't happy about seeing you. Not Peter, his best friend. Not you. Not today. Him.

Pretend, like it's all a game. Act, because it's a mask and a few inches thin. Fake it, because you're someone else—a stranger, someone he didn't know. Put on a show, because you're playing the vigilante, you're giving him possibilities, you're giving him hope—like you're supposed to.

(You wanted to give him more.)

You watched him stand up, shaky, unstable, like death was holding the strings he was moving on, poison flooding instead of blood through his veins, and you wanted to rush over. Gather him up, long legs and frail frame. Carry him off. Tell him to rest. Lie to him, because it's all you had left, lie to him that it was going to be okay, the way you did when he'd tripped and fallen down, face flat on the ground, forehead swollen to the size of a small lemon.

But you couldn't. You're Spiderman, and you'd appeared in good faith, at the request of Peter Parker, his best friend. You're here, and he's another citizen of the City in need of your help. You're here, and you're both strangers—you had never met. (True. He's never met you. Not like this. Not in these clothes. Not under this skin. Not in this frame of mind. True. He's never met you.) You called him Mr. Osborn, for God's sake. Mr. Osborn, they'd reserved that for Norman. Mr. Osborn, formal and detached and neutral. Mr. Osborn, and you were still looking at him through Peter Parker's eyes.

He reached for the liquor container and you winced, inwardly.

Ten years. You'd missed out on that, you guessed. When he started drinking. But studying him now, his swagger, his body odor, his voice, he'd started and made it his point to not stop.

You knew that Harry. Still did. Willingly drowning himself in a well, deep, deeper, when he'd realized there was no way out.

You look like you've had a lot to drink, you told him, and he kept pouring. Dark auburn liquid splashing into the glass.

I've had plenty, he replied, chugged down the liquor and placed it near the container, sitting down on the couch opposite you.

You've had enough, went your mind.

You really shouldn't have anymore, you pressed on, and he laughed, to your stunned surprise. Laughter, the good, albeit heavily wearied, kind. He'd pushed his hair back, eyes shut, shaking his head.

You sound like my best friend, he said, finally, Kept telling me to lay off the scotch.

(The story was this:

Your catching up day trip, Harry Osborn's Day Off style, ended at a bar.

You both kept throwing rocks, aimless, frustration fired out, ripples broken into voids on the river surface. The sky darkened, and he'd suggested they go somewhere else.

Sure, you shrugged, Anywhere you want. Always one to oblige. With Harry, someone's got to be the flexible one in the relationship, and it was obvious from the start that it was you.

You found yourselves in a bar three hours later, bottles of various shapes, sizes, colors, packed the shelves behind the bartender. Bourbon, whiskey, scotch, vodka, gin, and other kinds of liquor you couldn't name. Lights were dimmed low, crowds humming like swarms of bees, and everyone seemed to be too engrossed in their own lives to notice him. Or him being with you, a no name Brooklynite.

The bar was small, cramped, but you'd found two stools in front of the bartender. He slid on, ordered two shots of whiskey.

(You hated whiskey.)

But you knew him. He took what he wanted, and he never started slow.

Five shots, and he was grinning at you. Poked your cheek, said it was red.

Like you're blushing, he said, and you interpreted it in your head as fondness. (Fondly, said fondly. That's it.)

Ten shots, and you were loud, fist slamming on the bar's surface, inhibition lost. He slammed his fist down, took your lead, wrapped his arm around your shoulders and pulled you close.

You really shouldn't drink this much, you remember slurring to him, not caring if the lengthy sentence was comprehensible.

He slapped you on the back, arm freeing you, and laughed—the same kind of laugh, actually, as today.

Only for tonight, he leaned in, face hovering in front of you, a blur, his blue eyes like a pool you could drown in, Only for tonight.

But you both knew it was a lie.

And you let him. You always did.

He ordered the next round—the last, he'd winked at you. You blinked back, the music playing in the bar too loud for your ears, and nodded, your head numbed.

Because aren't we celebrating?, he'd declared, once you wrapped your fingers around the shot glass, voice cheerful and clear, to your concerned, increasingly loose mumbles.

He raised his glass, To us, and you froze.

To us, you repeated, almost too dumbly, and clinked your glass with his.

(The point was this:

He said, To Us.

Not to me, not to you, not to our friendship. To Us.

He could hold his drink better than you, that was true, but away from everything else, from the paparazzi, the crowds, from Oscorp, from the City, when it was just the two of them, sitting beside each other, laughing and screwing up words and belting early childhood 90's hits (Backstreet Boys' _I Want It That Way_ was a highlight.), when it was just the two of them.

To Us definitely (had to, _had to_ ) mean(t) something.

Us, a link, a bond. You and him together. Best friends. Us, you and him, side by side, trusting, believing, concerned for one another, as best friends would be.

Us, you and him. Us. You replayed the word in your mind.

Us.)

Your memories failed you in the middle, as to what led to you and him at the bar's back door.

You were seeing black, and then it was your lips crashing onto his, explosive, like an ignition set off, impulses taking over, your arms on either side of him, his back to the door. He's especially receptive, accepting, hands cupping your cheeks, drawing you in. Deep, deeper.

Tongues, and you felt your head on fire, your knees weak. His fingers were knotted in your hair, and you remembered wanting to stretch time—make it last. Make this us last.

(You wanted more.)

(You wanted to give him more.)

You were moaning, rough, low, the kind of sound you'd never thought would escape your lips, your hand tugging on his tie, when you pulled away, gasping.

I can’t, you muttered, I’m not—

He was staring back at you, lips devilish red, mouth slightly agape, eyes glazed, debauched, his shirt collar crumbled, and it was your turn to bite your lip.

Pete, he murmured, an intoxicated, delirious plea, Pete.

You couldn’t.

You were both half unconscious, ruined from the alcohol injected. He was your best friend. Wandering hands, and you were afraid of consequences. Of facing him the next day.

You _couldn’t._ )

I— words caught in your throat. Similarities. Mind and mind. Spiderman was a part of you, was who you were when you slipped on the red and blue.

Caring for Harry Osborn was his burden—Peter Parker's, one that happened to fall upon you as Spiderman.

The heart—once fallen, was not divided. Peter Parker felt, and so did Spiderman. Put on the mask, cover up Peter Parker under the spandex, and he'd become you, but his heart, Peter Parker's, was still yours, the very same, naked, vulnerable, four walls throbbing and exposed.

Mind and mind, not mind and body. Costumes may have disguised Peter Parker, allowed you to interact with Harry—Mr. Osborn—anew, but they were not in the business of refreshing hearts, much less automatic, temporary _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_ sessions.

History. Ten years apart and a little over still ten years together, long before Peter Parker became you and permitted a few to have access to you both. You’d shared too much, too much with Harry—Mr. Osborn—the burnt coals, remains, of memories still lit in your mind.

Harry—Mr. Osborn—was still talking, nostalgic reminiscence about his and Peter Parker's (not you, not you) shared childhood days.

Your skin itched, and you longed for him to be one of the few who knew your and Spiderman's secret, but you couldn't.

You don't trust him, said your mind.

You—no, Peter Parker—knew Harry, the Harry, his best friend, not the Harry in between the years, the Harry who appeared in photo shoots and tabloid scoops, the Harry who grew out his adolescent days within the confines of a prep school, the Harry who traveled the world and yet found himself back at the same spot where he started.

Those Harry's, hiding behind these cryptic, volatile blue eyes, the ones he may not ever reveal to you—no, Peter Parker—and the ones he may have shoved away, locked into a closet, the way you—no, Peter Parker—did with Richard Parker's aging briefcase.

Because what was the self, without identities? (Multiple. We put on different masks, different costumes, different skins, from our mind's collection, to interact with the different people we encountered in our lives. There's the you in public, and there's the me in the bedroom. There's him around his girlfriend, and there's her around her colleagues. The true self? The one, the only one you always returned to, the one you'd never felt the need to pretend, to construct fences, to put up guards, the truly defenceless, naked self—was the one you knew best, not the you elsewhere, the you within yourself, from yourself, for yourself. And you're struggling, because Peter Parker had kept you, Spiderman, close, shared your injuries, your losses, your victories, your tragedies, your pain. And how, how long could you pretend before he suspected, before he moved on, from identifying similarities to deducing and dissolving two identities into one? _How long?_ )

What was the mind, without the heart at its core, pulling the strings?

What was the self, if pretence was its integral part? What was the self, if the heart fell through the gaps between identities, and they overlapped?

Harry—Mr.Osborn—was the area where they collided, harsh, immediate, fulminating. The flagged, pinned post where the heart faltered and hesitated.

The point where his past and present crashed head-on, Peter Parker's. You, as Spiderman, had always trusted him to keep ideas, memories, actions, words, compartmentalized, separated, ordered.

Harry—Mr. Osborn—was an interruption, a bug in the system, a hiccup Peter Parker had welcomed into his life, without hesitation.

And it fell to you, Spiderman, to keep up the work, continue the performance, negotiate and act your way through this identity, this version of the self.

(Because you and him, Peter Parker, you were, essentially, disregarding the bullshit rambling, the same person, the same, weren't you?)

You were silent while Mr. Osborn spoke. He was musing about Gwen now, Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker's on and off girlfriend.

Even that guy's got someone, he poured himself another drink and downed the scotch.

(Always Mr. Osborn's—Harry's—problem. Since the phone calls. Peter Parker was the someone in his life, the someone who listened, the someone who cared. The someone who happened to be, sort of, involved with his other someone, and the Peter Parker in you knew it was exactly this that Harry Osborn couldn't stand.

Mine, Peter Parker remembered Harry cooing fiercely over his toy train set, hands gathering the pieces to his chest, to himself.

_Mine._

That part of his hadn't changed. Whatever Harry wanted, he got. Empty mansion, empty halls. Deserted rooms and forgotten hugs. Laughter that went unheard and awards that went unseen.

Always, always reaching out for something tangible, someone solid, flesh and blood, someone to fill those hugs, to share in the laughter, to liven up the empty halls. To feel that feelings meant something.

The Peter Parker in him knew it all too well.)

Called Peter complicated, and it was because of you.

Said there was no one to care for him, and Peter Parker wanted to leap out with a fervent protest.

Because it was like Harry to give up, to give in so easily. It was like Harry to scramble, if not crawl his way, to find the quickest way out, even if it was the dirtiest.

You took hold of his wrist, and spoke Peter Parker's words. Verbal comfort, just as Peter Parker used to do.

_It would all be okay, trust me, Mr. Osborn, that it would all work out to be all right._

You let go a minute later, apologizing for being a klutz, for confusing and coupling verbal comfort with physical contact—that was Peter Parker's thing, not yours.

But he grabbed your wrist, and refused to let you go.

You two are too much alike, he thought out loud.

( _Because_ , you and Peter Parker wanted to say, _Because_.)

You knew what would follow. He'd gotten something, someone to hold onto, and you needed to leave.

You knew what was to come next, and a question echoed in your head.

But what was normal?

Was normal lusting after your best friend? Was normal letting him climb onto your lap, wrap his lanky legs around you, his hand tracing down your chest (Warmth. Fire. wrong. Truth. Stop.) another taking hold of your hand. Held onto it. Tight.

And you knew his mind was made up.

He may be asking a question, but he was forging ahead with his impromptu plan.

You're not complicated, he whispered, his face opposite yours, his gaze, those blue eyes, the strongest you had ever seen them, predatory, possessive.

Wrong.

Your heartbeats drummed in your ears, drowned words down your throat. You opened your mouth, and arguments were deconstructed.

Let me, he muttered, his steady voice almost a command. He slid in closer, thighs brushing yours, legs entangled with red and blue, and you gasped. (Unprepared. Off the script. An improv.) He lifted a part of your mask, up to your nose, enough to glimpse your mouth.

You sweated, and his fingers grazed your chin, (Skin. Contact. Burning.) curious, playful, deciphering you.

Too wrong.

Your skin felt rough under his careful touch, your heart a one dimensional, collapsing piece of torn paper, about to blow away.

You knew what was to come next. You still weren't ready.

Sober. At least there was one of you this time. He was not, coming at you like this, but it was useless protesting.

And he chose the second you were most lost in yourself to snatch you back. Leaned in and brushed his lips on yours.

All wrong.

Supple lips, gentle, soft. He kissed, begging, hungry. You kissed, obliging, attentive. He bit your lip a little, teasing, hands trailing down your shoulders. You felt detached from yourself, and you wondered if he, Peter Parker, was feeling the kiss too.

His lips caressed yours. Tongue nudged your mouth open, and you let him in.

(You always did.)

His lips were still on yours when he gave a little push on your chest, and you fell back on the sofa.

He climbed on top of you, those sinful legs straddling your body. Ground his hips down, and you groaned, _Please_.

(This was you, as Spiderman, over stepping boundaries. This was you, doing what Peter Parker wouldn't dare, and lumping it in the Okay category, because this was you, citizen web slinger and stranger to Mr. Osborn.

So you could.

So _he_ could.)

You felt him through the jeans he was wearing. Hard, protruding. The spandex was probably doing little work in hiding your throbbing bulge.

He tugged down the lower part of your suit, slipped his hand under, and you hit your head on the sofa's surface.

Please, a whisper from your lips, a curse, a prayer. Both. You didn't know.

Your hands reached for his hair, fingers tangling themselves in, and pulled.

 

* * *

 

 _Romeo and Juliet_ was mandatory reading in ninth grade English class, the Peter Parker in you remembered.

You found a blanket on the floor, silvery smooth, and bent down to pick it up. Covered him with the fabric, nimble fingers cautious not to wake him.

But his eyelids fluttered open, and luminous blue eyes scrutinized you in the dark.

Hey, he uttered, drowsy, hair a tousled bedhead.

Harry, harmless and alone. Harry, breakable voice and a barely put together self. The Harry Peter Parker knew. The Harry so bereft, so deprived of love, of that someone beside him, that Peter Parker wanted to nestle himself up to him under the blanket, and wrap his arms around that delicate frame.

But it wasn't Spiderman's place. Not what you were supposed to do.

His eyes were fixated on you as you stepped away, toward the window.

Hey, he called, small smile on his lips, I'll leave the window open tomorrow night. (Was that a hint of hope? You were sorry you couldn't do more. Peter Parker was grief stricken he couldn't lend a hand, more than he already did.) Harry yawned, covering his mouth with his palm a second too late, and you smiled under the mask.

Peter Parker was smiling, too.

Goodnight, Mr. Osborn, was all you could say, and before he nodded, and flopped back down on the sofa, Peter Parker wondered if Harry had read Romeo and Juliet during his days in the prep school.

(He probably did, at some point.)

If Harry knew he was Juliet to his Romeo, window instead of balcony, a fmasked vigilante and an accusing society in place of feuding families.

If Harry knew this Romeo was no less trapped than his Shakespearean counterpart, no less a daydreamer, a sentimental fool, a Romeo denied and chained by his fearful affections for his Juliet, a Peter Parker locked up by his own conflicting desires.

If Harry knew their Romeo and Juliet were headed to a denouement no less tragic, an ending over which death had the sole control, a finale foreshadowed by sickness and death.

 _Ah, Juliet_ , ran the words in Peter Parker's head, _Let thou not be conquered by death. Crimson in thy lips. Crimson in thy cheeks._

_Let thou still be as fair._

_Unsubstantial death is but amorous, I believe, and so here will I remain._

_With you will I remain._

 

* * *

 

I don't do complicated.

Harry was sucking on a straw, lips pink and dangerous, his usual 'public' outfit of vest, tie, shirt, and trousers on.

You managed to drag him out to Burger King for lunch (an accomplishment in itself). You're Peter Parker now, and this was just a meal between best friends. Just.

You chuckled, Sure.

Liar, you wanted to say, Spiderman was the definition of complicated, and you know it. There's a man underneath that mask, and he's somebody's son. Somebody's nephew. Somebody's best friend.

Harry had his hands around the plastic container of his soda (Sprite. He never had Coke.), corner of lips curled into a smirk, and you knew you couldn't resist.

Slept well last night? you asked, wanted to stray away from the subject but were unable to, You look a whole lot better.

I got some help, he grinned, and you choked on your soda at the wild, satisfied look in those eyes.

You were coughing your lungs out, and he'd tilted his head, voice amused, You okay, Pete?

I'm, you gulped down air, hand patting the left side of your chest, I'm fine.

Spiderman came for a visit, he continued, bouncing the container from one hand to the other.

Tactile, cheerful, wherever he was most comfortable, your Harry.

(Spiderman's Mr. Osborn.)

I should thank you, he took another sip of his drink, glanced up at you, eyelashes long (you cursed yourself for noticing), electrifying blues magnified up close.

Uh, you replied, quite eloquently, biting down on your straw and wishing it were his lips.

He laughed, threw his head back, carefree, blissful.

And you wanted to stretch time—make it last. Make _this_ us last.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by P'Es, Esmidsm's cute/amazing doujinshi, Dangling by a String. Thank you so much for the lovely creation and the inspiration ka! <3
> 
> Thank you all for stopping by, reading, leaving kudos, reviewing, darlings! This was one hell of an epic one-shot to write (How could you do this to me, Peter?!!!). Already going to follow this up with at least one cute, just-because-of-reasons fic/ficlet (There's a clue hidden in this fic, if you search carefully). These boys deserve some fun times.
> 
> Lots of love x


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